The Paeroa RSA has received another $5000 from Hauraki District Council so it can embark on the next step towards earthquake-proofing its building.
The Belmont Rd club was earlier identified as a “potentially earthquake-prone building”.
In September, 2019, it was granted $5000 from council’s Significant Natural Areas and Heritage Features Incentive Fund to obtain seismic assessment reports, with the results later showing the building was less than 20 per cent of New Building Standards.
The RSA now needs to obtain a design for its structural upgrade, and recently asked council for an extra $13,396.
At its meeting on February 22, elected members decided to instead give $5000 because the work proposed was not active maintenance of the heritage building, and encouraged the RSA to seek other funding sources.
“Just note that we have given them $5k, and if we gave them $10k, that’d be $15k, which would be quite high in comparison to what we have done,” Mayor Toby Adams said.
Deputy Mayor Paul Milner agreed with others around the table that $5000 was the appropriate amount.
“With the RSA, before you can actually physically do something, you need to do a great deal of planning… that’s going to be a half a million dollar project, if not more, so to give a little bit up-front is probably a good thing,” he said.
The decision was made to grant $5000 from council’s Significant Natural Areas and Heritage Incentive Fund to the Paeroa RSA, stating that payment would only be made on receipt of confirmation that the club had secured the balance of the total cost of the design for the structural upgrade of its building.
